(Note: Easter basket not included, just to make a fun photo! With these 7 books on gardening, painting, quilting, stitching, decorating, beading and wedding planning, you will surely be inspired to make all sorts of fabulous stuff!)

A refreshing source of ideas to help your children learn to grow their own patch of earth, Gardening Lab for Kids encourages children to get outside and enjoy nature. This fun and creative book features 52 plant-related activities set into weekly lessons, beginning with learning to read maps to find your heat zone, moving through seeds, soil, composting, and then creating garden art and appreciating your natural surroundings.

Renata Fossen Brown guides your family through fun opportunities learning about botany, ecology, the seasons, food, patience, insects, eating, and cooking. The labs can be used as singular projects or to build up to a year of hands-on outdoor experiences. The lessons in this book are open-ended to be explored over and over–with different results each time! Garden Lab for Kids is the perfect book for creative families, friends, and community groups and works as lesson plans for both experienced and new gardeners. Children of all ages and experience levels can be guided by adults and will enjoy these engaging exercises.

So, slip on your muddy clothes, and get out and grow!

As Associate Director of Education, Renata Fossen Brown (Cleveland, OH) oversees the thousands of school children visiting Cleveland Botanical Garden yearly, as well as the development and implementation of teacher professional development workshops. She assisted in the planning and facilitating of a 10-day teacher workshop that traveled to Costa Rica to study biodiversity. Brown is involved in the writing of interpretation and exhibit graphics at the Garden and served as president of the Cleveland Regional Council of Science Teachers.